The Aokigahara Forest: Forest Of Suicides

[Katashi_itto]

The Aokigahara Forest is the most popular site for suicides in Japan. After the novel Kuroi Jukai was published, in which a young lover commits suicide in the forest, people started taking their own lives there at a rate of 50 to 100 deaths a year. The site holds so many bodies that the Yakuza pays homeless people to sneak into the forest and rob the corpses. The authorities sweep for bodies only on an annual basis, as the forest sits at the base of Mt. Fuji and is too dense to patrol more frequently.

[yuiyoshida]

1. In San Francisco it is the Golden Gate bridge...

a popular place for suicides, so much so, the CHP has set up surveillance cams along the bridge and there were a special group of officers who would do their level best to talk people from taking their own lives.




The suicide magnet that is the Golden Gate Bridge

There were 10 confirmed suicides from the Golden Gate Bridge in August. It was the most suicides in any month in the bridge's history.

Monday, Tuesday, suicide. Thursday, Friday, suicide. Sunday, Monday, suicide. Over and over, a suicide every three days.

The 10th was a 17-year-old girl from Marin County.

This information doesn't come from the Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District. The district considers itself the official source of all information related to the bridge — except information on suicides. The number comes from the coroner who does the autopsies.

One reason the bridge has so many suicides is its magnetic appeal. Suicide sites tend to draw despairing people to them, and the numbers show that the Golden Gate Bridge exerts a stronger pull than anywhere else.

more..http://articles.latimes.com/2013/sep/29/opinion/la-oe-bateson-golden-gate-bridge-suicides-20130929

[KansDem]

2. "The Bridge"

People suffer largely unnoticed while the rest of the world goes about its business. This is a documentary exploration of the mythic beauty of the Golden Gate Bridge, the most popular suicide destination in the world, and those drawn by its call. Steel and his crew filmed the bridge during daylight hours from two separate locations for all of 2004, recording most of the two dozen deaths in that year (and preventing several others). They also taped interviews with friends, families and witnesses, who recount in sorrowful detail stories of struggles with depression, substance abuse and mental illness. Raises questions about suicide, mental illness and civic responsibility as well as the filmmaker's relationship to his fraught and complicated material.

The Bridge

Here is the full version on YouTube--

Saw it a couple of years ago. Very somber.

[yuiyoshida]

3. yup, already posted it..

see front page of DU.

[KansDem]

4. oops!

[panfluteman]

5. Land of the Blue-Green Trees

That's the literal English translation of the name of this forest, Aokigahara. I speak, read and write Japanese, and used to work as a Japanese - English translator - that's one of the ways that I put myself through acupuncture school, translating all kinds of stuff, even about Oriental herbal medicine, from Japanese to English. Anyway, this video brought back many memories, and was especially evocative of the stoic, philosophical Japanese approach to life. When the main character said that nobody dies alone, even though they may think that they do, that is especially evocative of the Japanese social philosophy - that man is, by his very nature, a creature that depends on others. The Kanji, or Chinese character / ideogram for "person" is that of one line that is propped up and leaning against another one - and so, man was not meant to live alone, or to think only of himself / herself, but to realize his or her interconnectedness with, and interdependence on, others. I climbed Mt. Fuji way back in high school in the late '60s, as part of an expedition of a church youth group. We set out at dusk, hiking all night, and arrived at the summit of Mt. Fuji shortly before sunrise, which was truly magnificent. I never knew back in those days that such a grisly suicide forest lay at its base.

[blackspade]

6. Beautifully sad.

[Art_from_Ark]

7. It's kind of creepy that when I enter the Japanese characters for "jukai",

that is, 樹海, (which is a generic term that usually refers to Aokigahara) in Google Japan, the first thing that comes up is 他のキーワード: 樹海死体写真, which means "Other key words: photos of dead bodies in the jukai"

[Titonwan]

8. It's sad but a fact of this life.

It happens here all the time. Ever-ree day. The difference is, is that it's hidden from view. It's the ugly side of American exceptionalism® that a lot of selfish Murikans don't want to face. Denying Unemployment benefits is only one way to drive a person into terminal despair.
Growing old in this country is a dog eat dog proposition, nowadays. If you're in your fifties and out of work- good luck with all of that. If you're a veteran, especially one from a previous war- good luck with all of that.
Thank you corporate Amerika. Nothing but nothing is as sacred as the 'bottom line'. Fuck people- they're now expendable. Welcome to the middle ages.